


False

by Control_Room



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alternate Dimensions, Angst, Mental Instability, Suicidal Ideation, memory lapses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 03:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18295652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room
Summary: Is memory real? Is anything?





	False

Darkness permeated his vision. Nothing but blackness. Still, he walked. And walked. And walked. If he kept moving, he was doing things, which meant that the ones and zeroes could not force him into any guilt.

 

What a liar.

 

He hunched his shoulders, trying desperately to lock out his own thoughts. Focus on the motion, right foot, left foot. Focus. Construct as you walk, left is zero, right is one, fix what you’ve done. Ignore the thoughts pounding in your mind, just keep walking, in this strange, shambling, backtracking walk.

 

Inhale.

 

Exhale.

 

Feel the world warp and grow with every breath, expanding and contracting with every rise and fall of the only chest in it.

 

Want to see what makes you a coward, you liar?

 

No, he does not. He really does not. But the question is not real, a mockery of his fragile mind, his weak health, outside and within.

 

The chains on his wrists are silent, but they are made all the worse when he attempts to further, and is yanked harshly back, wrists and neck and ankles aching with the jerk.

 

Pathetic, he grimly thinks, knowing the lie to be true. He was so absolutely exhausted. What he would not do for a kind word or a gentle touch.

 

But there was no one to do that.

 

Not in his world, at least.

 

He attempted to open a portal into Joy’s dimension, just wanting physical comfort.

 

The image he got instead of the green door was not a pill, but Joy, still, gone, eyes glazed over, the bottle of pills spilled over his hand. Johan kneeling over him, tears dripping down his face.

 

He closed the portal hastily, backing away rapidly.

 

No… no… NO!

 

That did not happen, it could not have, no!

 

It… it had to be a false memory, right!? It could not be true!

 

But something within Johan clicked, and a steady stream of tears cascaded down his cheeks.

 

Oh, it did, didn’t it… were the memories in his head real? Were they covering up the truth with a kind story of candies and barely scraping together?

 

Joy was dead, wasn’t he?

 

He must be, and it was all his fault.

 

That meant…

 

“Magenta!” he whispered, his eyes widening, the tears staining it redoubled, pain stabbing through him. Fearfully, he tried to pull up the portal into his Maggie’s realm, and got… a shattered, grotesque, inside out, inactive, never to be used again, gate, locked.

 

He felt something break.

 

He looked at his hands. Red seeped between his fingers.

 

Ha ha ha.

 

Bleeding.

 

His fisted hands shook as a smile twisted over his features.

 

Corvid was murdered by Ink, soul ripped out of him.

 

Egg was never going to be happy, he was going to keep making the same mistake of lying to himself over and over.

 

Oh, they were all dead and gone and ruined and corrupted and broken.

 

He just lied to himself so often, his mind projected falsehood to fix the truth.

 

The truth was that he was alone, he shoved everyone away, he was the reason that nothing good could ever come from his dimension, the only thing within it wicked and horrible and twisted. He was so pathetic.

 

More images flooded into his mind, drowning him.

 

Dream’s family dying around him, killing his soul.

 

Joy dead.

 

Egg forced to watch his own demise loom before him.

 

Cipher being hurt and beaten to the ground.

 

Gefori suffering a mutiny, killing him.

 

Henry killing Joey.

 

Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

 

All those he cared about, all those he had formed a connection to, dead and gone.

 

Hating him.

 

Dying hating him.

 

He curled up, the grin on his lips aching on his tear stained face. The chains holding him dragged him back, despite his weak, pitiful struggle. The one on his throat tightened, and he could not breathe.

 

He was alone, and he could not breathe.

 

Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, have, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, you, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, ever, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead dead, found, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, that, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, seeing, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, a, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, word, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, so, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, many, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, times… 

 

It stops looking real.

 

Was it ever real to begin with?

 

Are you real?

 

Ha, ha, ha.

 

Are you?

 

Of course, you’ll say.

 

But what can he say?

 

He’s seen himself dead so many times, are any of them real? Is he real?

 

Is he alive, if he’s real? What proof does he have?

 

Nothing.

 

He is nothing.

 

Nothing and no one.

 

No one exists, and neither does he.

 

He screams, trying to fill the void with his voice alone, hearing nothing, hearing no one.

 

He grips his own head as he screams, hands claws in dark, ink, hair.

 

His eyes closed tight in agony as he screams out pain and anger and confusion and hurt and dead.

 

The word in his heart as he screams, dead.

 

Make it end.

 

Kill him.

 

Please.

 

Please, make it stop.

 

He doesn’t want to live in a lie, he wants the truth!

 

Are they dead!?

 

What’s the truth?

 

He cannot answer, and so, curls up and cries.


End file.
